CIREBON, Indonesia (AFP) – Indonesian police said Thursday they were searching for 15 suicide vests prepared by a terrorist cell that carried out an attack on a police mosque last month, wounding 30 people.
Information gathered from suspects detained in relation to the attack suggested another 15 vest bombs were circulating somewhere in the massive archipelago, police said.
"We are still looking for 15 bombs," police spokesman Anton Bachrul Alam told reporters in Cirebon, West Java, where the mosque was attacked on April 15.
Twenty-two suicide vests had already been seized as part of the ongoing investigation, he said.
Police also released a video made by the bomber, Muhammad Syarif, 32, whom they allege was linked to several militant networks including Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid, founded by radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir.
"I hope this bomb will kill many friends of the devil. God is with me," he said in the clip.
He said he was inspired by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was killed by US forces in Pakistan shortly after the Cirebon mosque bombing.
"So many mujahedeen (holy warriors) were killed and arrested by the police as they were fighting to uphold the religion of Allah. Those who kill these mujahedeen are friends of the devil," he said.
Police paraded before the media several detained suspects linked to Syarif, who was killed instantly when he set off his device in a mosque at a police compound during Friday prayers.
The arrests come as part of investigations into a series of recent incidents including a Good Friday plot to blow up a Jakarta church and a book bomb campaign targeting Muslim moderates and counter-terrorism officials.
No one was killed in those incidents.
Officials have warned that local extremists could carry out attacks to avenge the killing of bin Laden.
But they say the Al-Qaeda leader's death will have little effect on Indonesian jihadis, who operate independently to the late Saudi extremist's global terror network.
Indonesia has won praise for rounding up hundreds of Islamist militants since 2002 when local radicals detonated bombs on Bali island, killing 202 people, mainly Westerners.
But analysts say indigenous terror networks are adapting to police crackdowns on high-profile groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah, which was blamed for the Bali bombing.
A report released by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute on Thursday provided fresh insight into how radicalism is spreading among inmates in Indonesia's notoriously corrupt prisons.
It said convicted terrorists were being allowed to plot and harden their networks "to better perform their jihad duties".
Police spokesman Alam said members of the Cirebon group had received doctrinal training from Aman Abdurrahman, a twice convicted terrorist and radical ideologue who is allowed to preach to fellow jail inmates.
"The group had been indoctrinated to destroy, among other things, mosques built by people who didn't obey Allah's law. The police mosque was one," he said.
"They will battle infidels who don't obey Allah's law... including the police."
Senior anti-terror police have publicly called for an overhaul of the prison system but Justice and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar rejected the Australian study, saying there were no grounds for concern.
"Terrorism is everywhere... Don't believe the research. It is a provocation. Where is the proof?" he said, joking that the claims in the report made him "dizzy".
Experts on Islamist militancy in Indonesia, an ostensibly secular democracy with some 200 million Muslims, say extremists are trying to destabilise the government to advance their demands for Islamic law.
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